


Call It Tomorrow

by stellatundra



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M, time travel (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 05:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19739200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellatundra/pseuds/stellatundra
Summary: "When Grantaire opens his eyes, he is in Heaven. It is the only explanation. He was shot, he died, now everything is clean and white and there is an angel with Enjolras’ face looking down at him from the foot of the bed.Funny, he never thought he would get in."Grantaire and Enjolras are shot at the barricade but wake up in the 21st Century where they have to navigate letting go of the past, finding their place in the future and dealing with their feelings for each other.





	Call It Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> This fic could not decide whether it wanted to be cracky, serious, sad or romantic so it is a bit of a mish mash of the lot (as usual).
> 
> Mentions of past canonical character death.

When Grantaire opens his eyes, he is in Heaven. It is the only explanation. He was shot, he died, now everything is clean and white and there is an angel with Enjolras’ face looking down at him from the foot of the bed. 

Funny, he never thought he would get in. 

And now the angel is frowning at him. Angels aren’t supposed to frown. Grantaire shifts, reaching, and something pulls in his chest. It hurts. Heaven isn’t supposed to hurt. He should have kept quiet, they might have let him stay. There’s something over his face. He claws at it, distressed. Something beeps frantically from above his head.

“Grantaire, be still,” the Enjolras-angel commands and he obeys.

“Monsieur Grantaire, I am going to remove the oxygen mask now,” says an unknown voice. “If you find it difficult to breathe, signal and we can put it back.”

Of course it’s hard to breathe, he’s looking at Enjolras. It’s always hard to breathe when he’s there. There’s a warm pressure on his hand and Enjolras – is it really him? – moves to sit beside him. 

“I was shot,” Grantaire says. 

“Yes,” Enjolras agrees, suddenly solemn.

“You were shot.” He looks for evidence of wounds, sees that Enjolras has one shoulder strapped up and bandages around his chest. He squeezes his hand tighter.

“Yes.”

“Are we dead?” He still can’t make sense of it: the light, the smell, the curious machines all around him.

“Apparently not. Don’t try to talk just yet. Let the doctors examine you.”

Later, there are questions. Grantaire is fairly sure he gets all of the answers wrong. 

_What is your name?_ That’s an easy one, at least, although they keep trying to use his first name, which is unsettling.  
_What happened?_ We were shot.  
_Who shot you?_ Men with guns.  
_Where do you live?_ Rue de Floreal  
_When were you born?_ April 18th.  
_What year is it?_ 1832

They pause at this and shine lights in his eyes, talking about concussion and amnesia.

 _Who is the current President of France?_ France has a president? Enjolras will love that. 

They ask how much alcohol he drinks a day and seem shocked by the honest answer.

They decide to keep him in ‘for observation’.

There is a radio in the hospital, and from it Grantaire manages to learn some of the ‘right’ answers to questions they ask and some of his own, like: who is the President, what year is it, what on earth are those small black rectangles people hold to their ears and talk into. 

A slight woman with tight braids and terrifyingly high heels named Jeanne, claiming to be from something called the Resettlement Bureau, comes to visit them. She doesn’t ask many questions, only their names and what they were doing before what both she and the doctors conveniently term their ‘amnesia’. There’s a slight twitch to her eyebrow every time she says the word which makes Grantaire think perhaps he should be asking her more questions. They don’t give entirely honest answers; Grantaire thinks ‘student’ will be a more palatable response than either ‘revolutionary’ or ‘drunk’. 

Three more days ‘under observation’ and they leave for a small shared apartment organised by the Bureau, with details of classes at a local college. Enjolras wanders wordlessly around the apartment, frowning at the unfamiliar objects. Jeanne shows them how to use the cooking appliances and introduces them to a disembodied automaton servant named Alexa who will provide them with assistance. 

As Jeanne turns to leave, Grantaire finally gives voice to questions of his own “How… why…?”

Jeanne smiles. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

He’s here. Alive. In a new century, a new time alive with possibility. And Enjolras is here with him. Maybe the how and the why of it don’t matter.

*

Enjolras goes to bed almost immediately. Grantaire stands alone in the small kitchenette for five minutes, staring around him, then gives up and heads to his own bed. It’s surprisingly easy to fall asleep, despite the strangeness of it all, the unnatural light, the sound of the traffic outside. 

Grantaire wakes in the middle of the night, the lights blinking on the clock device by his bedside informing him that it is 2:59. There is a muffled sound coming from beyond the door. Grantaire instinctively reaches for something to carry with him, should it prove to be an intruder, but can only find the clock device. Pulling it from the wall, wires and all, he pushes open the door to the living area. 

Enjolras is there, sitting on the floor, leaning against the kitchen counter with his head in his hands. The strange, muffled sound was Enjolras crying; not a sound Grantaire had ever heard before or ever expected to hear. He throws the clock device down and announces his presence with a quiet cough.

“Enjolras? Are you all right?”

Enjolras looks up at him, eyes red rimmed. 

“They are dead,” he says simply. “All of them.”

“Yes,” Grantaire replies.

“I asked her,” Enjolras says, and Grantaire isn’t sure who he means until he catches sight of the grey box on the counter – Mademoiselle Alexa. “She didn’t have records for all of them but it’s pretty clear. I mean we saw… The only one who made it was Marius. Baron Pontmercy. He died in 1879 of a fever. Survived by his wife and three children.” 

“But we are alive,” Grantaire says, stupidly. 

“Yes. But why us? Why me? Why you?” And of course, Enjolras’s disdain would extend beyond the grave into whatever after-life they now find themselves in. He slides down to the floor to sit beside Enjolras.

“I don’t know,” he says, the honest answer. The only answer. He wonders if Enjolras expects one of his long, rambling digressions. He doesn’t know if he has them in him anymore. His words died on the barricade with his friends. 

“You know it was a failure. The barricade, everything. It was for nothing. They died for nothing. And it was my…” Enjolras lapses into sobs again and Grantaire, struck to the bone by this uncharacteristic display of grief, puts his arms around him. He is ready and waiting to be repulsed, him, the least of them and the only survivor, but Enjolras buries his face in his neck and cries and cries. “I don’t deserve to be here,” he says at last, scarcely more than a whisper, but heard easily enough in the quiet of the night.

“Hush,” Grantaire bids him. “We go where the fates decree. There may be some purpose in this yet.” It’s not enough, but more would rile rather than soothe Enjolras, he fears. He cannot express aloud that to him it is enough just to know Enjolras lives, to be able to breathe the same air as him, to provide him with even this much comfort. 

Eventually he coaxes Enjolras to the sofa and they lie there until morning in each other’s arms. When he awakes, he is alone and Enjolras does not speak of it again. 

*

What Grantaire loves about the 21st Century: the food. Especially pizza. Not that, according to the charming Mademoiselle Alexa, pizza is a particularly new invention, but the proliferation of neon-lit fast food restaurants is certainly something new to him. Then there is the drink. Such variety! Not that he has yet managed to sample more than a fraction of it, given Enjolras’s frowning disapproval. 

But chief among all the new things is a new artform, a new love: cinema. He is mesmerised by it, would watch it all hours, if college classes and earning money allowed. He watches The Passion of Joan of Arc and The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Amelie and The Avengers, and he loves them all. Cocteau, Melville and Renoir become his new idols but he is entranced beyond measure by the big screen, whatever is showing.

Enjolras cares for precisely none of these things. Not even pizza. 

What Enjolras loves about the 21st Century: the progress. The overthrow of the monarchy, the separation of church and state, universal suffrage. He waxes poetic about these things for days, the more he learns about leaps forward in terms of civil rights, the more excited he becomes. That the people did rise, eventually, he seizes upon as a vindication of sorts of their own poor, ill-fated rebellion. 

What Grantaire secretly suspects Enjolras loves even more about the 21st Century: the progress yet to be made. He frowns over the inadequacies of the healthcare system, rages over the treatment of immigrants, composes entire speeches about political corruption. He’s in his element when he’s furious, when he’s channelling that rage into a force for good. 

Also, coffee. Enjolras has a weakness for coffee, the sweeter and frothier the better.

*

They both find themselves part time jobs in catering (experience not necessary, willingness to get your hands dirty and put up with people shouting at you essential) and enrol in the local college. Grantaire opts for Art and Film Studies, while Enjolras chooses Sociology and Politics. They both decide to take some classes, recommended by Jeanne, in basic skills needed for modern life such as computers. They begin to get the hang of living, now. It’s surprising how easy even a bizarre situation like theirs is to get used to. Grantaire adopts the policy of not looking a gift horse in the mouth, determined to make the most of his second chance.

Meeting people is probably the hardest part. Grantaire has always been gregarious, but it’s more difficult without a common language, and the language of drink only goes so far. The slang and the vernacular are easy enough to pick up, after a fashion, but he finds his references to the classics have been replaced by a century and a half’s worth of pop culture references, that even a crash course in cinema can’t quite cover. At least Shakespeare is never out of fashion.

Enjolras, he of the silver tongue who once persuaded many of his fellow students and workers to his cause, is quieter, hesitant. He seems worried about getting it wrong, after an impressive take-down by a fellow student who had lectured him following his sociology lecture about his failure to take into account institutional biases in his presentation on unemployment rates. Grantaire, who had come to meet Enjolras for lunch, had very nearly applauded. Enjolras had simply bowed in her direction and said he would have to research the topic more thoroughly. The young woman had frowned, as if unsure whether to be gratified by his admission of ignorance on the subject, or offended by the bowing. 

People tend to think them odd, but then that’s nothing new. When asked about their past, Grantaire manages to imply a sudden transfer following a traumatic incident which is both true and vague enough that they won’t be pressed for the details. If anyone does, a simple wish not to talk about it expressed is enough to deter all but the most persistent enquirers. (To those, he tells the absolute truth and they always assume he is mocking them.) Once, when Enjolras waits for him after his art class, he overhears two of his fellow students speculating furiously over whether he and Enjolras are enrolled in a witness protection programme. 

Eventually, Grantaire makes a small group of friends, and finds it’s almost harder having friends than not. He can’t help but be reminded of the friends he lost, back home, back then. It feels disloyal, in a way, but it would feel more disloyal still not to make the most of this chance to live, when they cannot. These new friends seem impossibly young and care-free, and he both pities and envies them for it. He can’t help but wonder if that is why Enjolras is so closed-off. Perhaps he doesn’t dare use his powers of charm and persuasion on anyone new. Perhaps he is afraid to make friends only to lose them again.

*

“Some of the guys from my art class are going to the cinema – you want to come?” Grantaire asks, taking a beer out of the fridge. The fridge is definitely in his top five of modern inventions. Cold beer is a revelation.

Enjolras looks up from the small sofa where he is scribbling furiously on a pad of paper in beautiful but now antiquated copperplate. After months of looking into various issues, Enjolras seems to have settled upon one particular one, and has spent the past few weeks arguing with people online about the treatment of asylum seekers and drafting letters to various organisations. 

“This is important, Grantaire,” Enjolras replies.

“Surely you can take one night off from revolution,” Grantaire says. “You work too much. I… I worry about you.”

“I’m fine.” Enjolras pauses in his scribbling, though, and looks up at him. “This is a better tomorrow than I had even dreamed of, back… back then.” Enjolras says. Grantaire agrees whole-heartedly, although not, he thinks, for quite the same reasons. “But the progress didn’t happen by people doing nothing. There’s an even brighter tomorrow out there, waiting, for these people. For us, too. But we can’t rest, we have to fight for it. So long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, we have to fight. I really feel that perhaps this is why I’m here, why I’ve been given a second chance. There’s still so much to do.” He says it with such fervour, such belief. 

Grantaire is taken aback. They haven’t talked about this, the why and wherefore of it all. Ever since that first night in the flat, when Enjolras had cried and Grantaire had held him, they’ve spoken only of current things, almost as if the past were something forgotten, something dead and buried. He crosses the room to lean over the back of the sofa, a safe distance away. Ever since that first night they haven’t touched either.

“You really think that’s why? You don’t think… you don’t think maybe dying for progress once was enough?”

“Why do you think we’re here then, if not to help?”

“A reward, maybe?” He suggests. Enjolras scoffs at that, and Grantaire wonders how much he’s still driven by guilt. “I don’t know. I don’t know, Enj.” He sighs. “I just wonder if maybe there’s something… something new. Something other than what we did before.”

Because here they are falling into the same patterns all over again. Enjolras is seeking out injustice, while he… appreciates art, drinks and disappoints Enjolras. What else is there?

Enjolras looks at him, a hint of vulnerability, of uncertainty on his face. Grantaire can barely suppress the urge to reach out and tuck a curl behind his ear. The doorbell buzzes and the moment is broken. Grantaire grabs a scarf and heads to the door. Phillippe and Anna are there, smiles and cheek kisses all round. Grantaire looks back once more at Enjolras but he’s staring heavily at the paper in front of him and doesn’t look up.

The film is a raucous comedy of errors and misunderstandings, a lot of people hiding in wardrobes and climbing out of windows in various states of undress. It’s not dissimilar to something he might have seen upon the stage, once upon a time, and Grantaire marvels once again at just how much the human race hasn’t changed in nearly two hundred years. He thinks Courfeyrac might have liked it, and says so, unthinkingly, when Enjolras asks him how it was when he gets in later that night. Enjolras hasn’t moved from his position on the sofa, although he has abandoned his letter-writing for a laptop, on loan from the college. Enjolras freezes at the sound of their friend’s name, and Grantaire kicks himself, mentally. 

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. We should… we shouldn’t forget them. I miss them.” He whispers this last part, almost as if it is something he shouldn’t be saying aloud. Grantaire crosses the room and sits down next to him.

“Me too. Me too.” He reaches across the space between them, and Enjolras twines their hands together. They sit for a few minutes, silent, hand in hand. Grantaire wonders if Enjolras remembers the last time they held hands. The first time. He doesn’t know how to pick up the thread of their earlier conversation, but feels the weight of it, something unfinished, in his chest. 

*

For their computer skills class, the instructor suggests they each start a blog. They take photos of each other, learn basic html and register on a website. 

Enjolras has the photo of himself that Grantaire took and curling script at the top which says, _“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”_ Grantaire had helped him with the design of it, rearranging text and photo to give the best effect. (He’d been focused on that so missed whatever the instructor had said about search histories that caused Enjolras to go pink).

His first few posts are part essays, part calls to arms for his political causes. They’re fiery and persuasive and well-written (and entirely devoid of pop-culture references). Something stirs in Grantaire’s chest, reading them. He’s glad Enjolras is interacting with the world, he’s glad Enjolras is a good person and wants to make things better for other people. But the feeling is less like pride and more like a sinking sensation like something slipping out of his grasp. Like he’s losing Enjolras all over again. Which is ridiculous, it is only a blog. But his heart grows heavier with it, all the same. 

Grantaire’s own blog is a collection of film reviews which begin to garner a modest amount of positive comments on their wit. The most scathing ones, pulling apart truly bad films are both the most popular and the most fun to write. But they are balanced with the glowing ones, the ones that convey his absolute love of and fascination for cinema as an art film. 

Enjolras reads his blog once and complains that he does not understand why anyone would want to watch a film called Sharknado 2 in the first place. Grantaire suspects Enjolras doesn’t understand why anyone would want to watch even the masterpieces of cinema, so he doesn’t take it personally. 

Grantaire looks at Enjolras’s blog more times than he cares to admit. 

*

He had mentioned the party before, it isn’t something he springs on Enjolras. Grantaire thinks that is an important distinction.

“You’re sure you don’t want to come? There will be people you know there. Carla from computer studies said she would go. And Phillippe, from my art class.” Enjolras looks up. 

“What is it for, again?”

“Just a party, Enjolras. At the Students’ Union building.”

“I thought the Students’ Union was about unionising students to lobby for better facilities and protest injustices, not to have parties.” Enjolras folds his arms over his chest and Grantaire sighs. He doesn’t know why he thought this might go any differently.

“Believe it or not, it is possible to do both,” he says, and he can hear the heat of temper in his own voice. “Going to one party, just to relax and talk to people, is hardly some kind of bacchanal debauchment.”

“It’s hardly important, either.” Something about his dismissive tone makes everything that Grantaire has felt pressing down on him for weeks now flare up into anger.

“I want to _live_ , Enjolras. I want to live now, today. Otherwise, what is the point of being alive?” He only realises he’s shouting when Enjolras stares at him for a moment, shocked at his outburst. Grantaire turns on his heel and leaves the apartment, slamming the door behind him. 

He doesn’t know why he’s so disappointed. It’s no less than he expected. There’s an itch under his skin as he walks along the street towards the college and the bright warmth of the union building. He just feels like he needs to be able to breathe, to at least fool himself that he can assimilate into this century. That he can live. Perhaps that will be easier without Enjolras, at least for one evening. He can imagine, for one night, that he isn’t tied to the anchor of the past, the fatal barricade, his undying, hopeless, hopeless love for Enjolras. He can drink without fear of disapproval, can flirt with all the beautiful people, can dance, moving his body to the strange rhythms of this century’s popular music without inhibition.

So, when, several drinks into the evening, Phillippe leans in close with one hand on his knee and asks if he wants to go somewhere quieter, Grantaire huffs out a laugh and says, yeah, sure, why not? Like any modern boy might. It’s not completely a surprise, after some weeks of drinking coffee and going to the cinema together, even if those times were usually accompanied by Anna or one of their other friends. Phillippe is tall and dark, handsome but nothing at all like Enjolras. He follows him out to a small courtyard, peopled by only a handful of smokers and one other couple taking advantage of the shadows. Grantaire slides his hand around the back of Phillippe’s head and feels the bristle of his short hair against his palm. Phillippe’s lips on his are cool and taste of vodka and lime and cigarettes. Phillippe’s hand finds his thigh and is creeping slowly upwards, inch by inch, as his other hand plays with the buttons of Grantaire’s shirt. Grantaire’s about to suggest that the courtyard isn’t quite quiet enough for what he has in mind when the peace is shattered by the sound of breaking glass.

Grantaire pulls away with a smirk, ready to give whoever dropped the drink a sarcastic round of applause, then freezes. It’s Enjolras. Enjolras, here, spilt drink and shards of glass around his feet, staring at Grantaire with an expression he can only describe as horror. His stomach lurches. Phillippe’s fingers are still tangled in his shirt but he’s looking between Grantaire and Enjolras with a growing puzzlement on his face.

“Excuse me,” Enjolras says at last, his voice faint and his face pale. “I…” And then he’s gone, fleeing back into the building and away.

“Fuck,” Grantaire says, “fuck, fuck, fuck.” It’s the only word that seems to cover the situation. 

“Hey man,” Phillippe says, stepping back and frowning at him. “I thought you guys were just roommates. I’m not into cheating.”

“It’s not like that,” Grantaire says, frustrated beyond measure.

“Sure. That’s what it looked like.”

“He’s just…” There are too many words that can fill that gap. Some of them too honest, some not honest enough. 

“Look, you should go after him. Before he like, changes the locks or something.”

“Phillippe, I’m sorry…”

“Whatever, man. See you in class.” He waves a hand, dismissing him. Grantaire barely waits for that before stepping over the broken glass and chasing after Enjolras. 

He catches up with him in a quiet street not far from their apartment. Enjolras isn’t running, he’s walking slowly with an odd, hunched look about him.

“Enjolras!” He grabs his arm. Enjolras stares at Grantaire’s hand on his arm until Grantaire blushes and pulls it away. Enjolras doesn’t say anything. “Look, I… I thought you knew, OK. About stuff like that. You’ve read all about human rights over the last two centuries, you can’t have missed reading about gay rights, you just can’t. Lucie and Virginie at the restaurant, I know you’ve seen them holding hands, this can’t… it can’t be that much of a shock to you.” Enjolras says nothing. “And… and I don’t think it’s fair if it disgusts you or whatever, because you’re all for people’s rights and it’s not like this is some new invention, you know, Jehan…”

“For God’s sake, Grantaire,” Enjolras snaps, “I know all that! It doesn’t disgust me, alright. That’s not…” Enjolras stops. He still looks pale and incredibly stressed by the entire conversation. “I just didn’t expect…”

“Me. You didn’t know I was…”

“I knew.” Enjolras says quickly. “You really ought to clear your browser history,” he adds, with a slight quiver of his lips that might be a smile or might be a grimace. And that is a sentence he never thought he would hear Enjolras say.

“Those pictures were for art,” Grantaire protests, although it’s only 60% true. “Look, Enjolras,” he sighs, “you’re going to have to help me out here. You say you don’t have a problem with it, but you looked horrified and I just don’t know…”

Enjolras lunges at him. It’s the only way to describe it. He mashes his mouth hard against Grantaire’s, his hands tangling in his hair. Grantaire is too shocked to kiss back, if it could even be called a kiss. He stares at Enjolras, wondering whether the world has turned upside down. Again. Enjolras retreats just as quickly.

“Never mind,” he says, in a small, defeated voice. “I thought. I wanted…” He turns to go, but Grantaire is quicker this time, catching him by the arm and reeling him back in. He pushes Enjolras up against the wall and kisses him, gently but purposefully. Enjolras makes a sound that is almost a whimper and Grantaire feels it like a kick to his chest. 

“What do you want, Enjolras?” he asks.

“I want to live,” Enjolras says, simply. “Like you said. I want to remember the past and fight for a better future and to live now. I want all of it.”

“And you… with me?” 

“If… if you’ll permit it.” There’s a set to his chin that’s almost defiant. Grantaire knows, now, having spent this time with him here, out of time, out of all that is familiar, that it is his way of covering up vulnerability. 

“If I…?” he echoes, incredulous. “Enjolras, you must know I adore you.” Grantaire drops a line of kisses along his jaw.

“I thought,” Enjolras gasps, “I thought we…” We what? Grantaire wonders. He remembers joined hands stretched across the sofa and wonders whether Enjolras has been running on the slowest of slow burns. “But you and Phillippe… If you want someone else, someone who doesn’t remind you of the past, someone who is better at…”

“No. No, Enjolras,” Grantaire cuts him off, pulling back to look him in the eye. “I only want you. You’re everything to me. Past, present and future.” It’s a dizzying confession to make, even now. “But are you sure you want this with me? I always thought,” his voice cracks, “that you would rather it had been anyone but me here with you.” 

“Ever since you first stood with me and took my hand,” Enjolras says seriously, “I knew there was no-one I would rather have by my side.”

“Enjolras…” He feels choked with emotion. He kisses him again, breathless with delight, until a sudden shout from the other side of the street startles them both into self-consciousness.

“Come on, let’s go home.” Enjolras takes him by the hand and Grantaire follows. 

Later, his hands on Enjolras’s hips, Enjolras smiling down at him, the taste of him in his on his tongue, Grantaire thinks that of all the wonders he has seen since he first woke up here, this is perhaps the most incredible.

Much later, he will remember that Enjolras called it home.

**Author's Note:**

> “…in other words and from a still broader point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, there should be a need for books such as this.” - Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
> 
> “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” - Mother Teresa
> 
> “If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow.”  
> ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables


End file.
